Ramdin, Lewis shine in 2nd T20 win

Trinidad and Tobago continued to dominate the Canadians, this time completing an easy 86-run win over the visitors at Guaracara Park Pointe-a-Pierre on Thursday night to sweep the two-match Twenty20 series 2-0.

There were many standout performances from the T&T camp, with aggressive half centuries from skipper Denesh Ramdin (64 not out) and Evin Lewis (50), plus a solid 48 from Kjorn Ottley leading the host to an imposing 181 for two after they won the toss and elected to bat.

That total proved too much for the Canadians who were never is a good position to challenge T&T's score.

Canada never got over left-arm spinner Yannick Ottley's double strike in the second over putting the hosts on course for the win.

Some tight bowling from leg-spinner Yannic Cariah yielded two wickets for 14 runs from four overs and that effectively wrapped up the win for T&T as Canada were restricted to 95 for seven in their 20 overs.

Lewis was the first hero of the night.

He dominated an opening stand of 53 with Justin Guillen, who went unnoticed for the majority of his half-hour stint at the wicket.

The Queen's Park Cricket Club skipper only managed seven runs off 12 balls with one boundary. In contrast the PowerGen left-hander, Lewis, pulled medium pacer Henry Osinde for a four and a six in the fourth over of the match which cost 17 runs.

But Guillen could not keep up the pace, hitting pacer Jeremy Gordon into the hands of Ruvindu Gunasekera at cover in the eight over.

Lewis continued to dominate the bowlers, bringing up his half century off 42 balls before he tried to deposit leg-spinner Junaid Siddiqui over deep midwicket and was caught by Amarbir Hansra.

T&T's scoring rate never dipped as Kjorn Ottley and Ramdin came out blasting.

They shared an unbroken 117-run partnership for the third wicket with Ramdin showing his aggressive side, hitting Siddiqui for two sixes to reach his half century off just 30 balls.

Even without the likes of Darren and Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard, T&T still managed to blast 73 runs off the last five overs with Ottley just missing out on a scoring what would have been his second half century of the series.

Canada continued to struggle with the bat, with Yannick Ottley sending back both openers Hiral Patel and Rizwan Cheema with the score on 17 in the second over.

Ansil Bhaggan piled on the pressure bowling his four fours for 12 runs before Cariah capitalised with the wickets of Ruvindu Gunasekera and Tariq Hamza both caught by young wicket-keeper Nicholas Pooran who handled the duties behind the stumps with Ramdin fielding in the covers.

Canada were 46 for three half-way through their innings and never recovered.

The Canadians complete their tour of T&T with a one-off 50 over match against the hosts at the National Cricket Centre, Balmain Couva starting at 10 a.m. today.

Canada are using the tour as preparation for their ICC World Cricket League Championship match against Kenya in Dubai next month while T&T used the games as warm-up for their upcoming Regional four-day and the Regional Super50 campaigns.

T&T start their four-day campaign against the Windward Islands at Arnos Vale, St Vincent on Friday (February 15) and will take on the same opponents in their Super50 opener at the same venue on February 21.